


auld lang syne

by Eternal



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:55:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26298280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eternal/pseuds/Eternal
Summary: Jonah goes back for Barnabas
Relationships: Barnabas Bennett/Jonah Magnus
Kudos: 22





	auld lang syne

_Should old acquaintance be forgot,_  
 _and never brought to mind?_  
 _Should old acquaintance be forgot,_  
 _and auld lang syne?_

How long had he walked that forsaken land? Months? Years even? 

Sometimes Barnabas wept. That feeling too, would pass. For the perpetual grey mist that enveloped the landscape also softened the harsh contours of the buildings, making his sharp grief duller and easier to bear. Any sentiments of hatred or resentment that he had felt towards Lukas had long since been lulled away to apathy.

There were houses, here in the fog, their windows insubstantial holes of blackness. No signs of life dwelled within them, save for what had been left behind — unfinished platters of food or bottles, signs of civilisation and society, but lacking in the human comfort and interaction that he had longed for so desperately. The remnants of a meal or a celebration mocked him. Never again, in the company of mankind, would he ever partake in them again. That loss too, he tried to bury. The well-trammelled road that he walked upon now was rent with footsteps made by phantoms that he could never touch. Some days, they would be erased, as if tides had crept upon that shore to wipe the sand clean.

And yet still, he felt hope. His thin hope was all that kept him going, as he walked that long journey to Edinburgh in the hopes of contacting Jonah. His first letter had been calm in nature, composed in such repose. The latter ones had plead and begged with as much desperation as he had the power to feel in this place. He had not received a single letter of correspondence in return. He had felt such a blow, a crushing pain of despair. He had been forsaken, he told himself, the mind accepting what the heart could not.

By now, it was perhaps winter in his own London, for the doors and windows had been shuttered against him in that season. The fog became so opaque that he could barely even make out the shape of what had been buildings, wrapped so thickly that it brought him no comfort to see the familiar skyline. There were no books here, there was nothing to occupy his mind from the agony of his solitary existence. Each day, awakening became harder and sleep more difficult to find. There was the fear, that one day he would find himself trapped, locked into some house with no means of escape. If that happened, then he knew that his separation from the outer world would finally be complete. Even if he did die, perhaps he would discover that there was no Lord and no Heaven above, nor hell below him. None save the terror of this empty world that he would never leave. He could think of no fate worse. He would surely go mad. 

He knew now that he was the only one of his kind, the only human in this place. He was not malnourished in body, but in soul. Sometimes he heard sounds. Voices, the product of his own madness. Once or twice he believed that he could hear laughter. Then music. Then a voice of terror — his own. Then he could hear the comfort offered by a loved one, someone that he had never had.

The closest person that he had ever had was Jonah. And he was far beyond the pale of Jonah’s help now.

The sickness came on gradually. The large manse, the only resting place that he had discovered, was filled with cold drafts. Fog would roll in from the steep open window frames. Little by little did he cease to feel the cold, first at the extremities and then in his torso. 

He lost the will to eat. Animals, he had heard, did that sometimes, when they were deprived beyond reason. And in captivity, they could at least see the sights and sounds of other species, if not their own. He had not even seen a bird or insect since entering this place. What use was food, when it offered him no comfort?

When he eventually felt the deep ache of starvation and thirst, he was so bedridden that he was unable to save himself. He was feverish and delusional, he would again see scenes, rise about him from his memory. The greenery of his home. Once, his friends were hosting a party for him, a sleek red orange fire burning in the hearth in merriment. All of them were gathered, their faces indistinct. Only Jonah’s face had been clear. Only he did not smile — for he had travelled too long and was unused to the comforts of a warm home. He was not truly there, Barnabas knew. None of them were there, in his dreams. Even, when he sought the refuge of delirium, this place denied him every comfort for he knew that they were not real. And gradually, their faces would fade from his mind, as he lost the memory of them. The last one to leave was Jonah.

He told Jonah, then, that he knew him to be a fiction. The other man had leaned over and touched his brow, perhaps to reassure him. It had been the only tender thing that the man had ever done, in their long acquaintance and Barnabas clung to that moment desperately. Then he slept the sleep of a person who did not expect to reawaken.

* * *

And yet, he did sense — as he lay there, wracked by fevers and chills — someone in there with him. It was in the subtle change in the lay of the room, a rearrangement of the shadows that hung about him. He had been in the servant’s room, for narrow and enclosed as it was, it near to the door. At one point, he must have noticed that the wind had ceased to blow in through the corridor and in from the windows. He must have cried out in fear, then. But he must have quieted and drifted off to sleep again, for when he awoke again he was given broth, a few spoonfuls at a time. Sometimes he was lucid enough to notice that broth was cold. More often than not, he took nothing, for he was very weak.

When he awoke, the shade of grey that filtered in from the sky was the same shade that it had always been, giving him no reference point for the time. For all he knew, every hour in the day was the same in that place, the same grey that shaded in every object, every piece of furniture with the same drab colour and lack of contrast. A clock, ticked deep in that place, like the steady pulse of a heart.

His fever must have been broken, for the damp cloth that someone had pressed to his brow had been removed. Now it sat on the bedside stool where water and soup sat beside it, items that he had not placed there himself. Emotion welled up in his throat. For a time, he was too afraid to look up, in case his spirit was crushed with disappointment again.

There was a man standing in the doorway. Search as Barnabas might, there was no emotion in those eyes, nor in that mouth whose corners were turned down. Yet, he might have wept in relief, had his tears not run dry long ago.

‘Jonah?’ He asked then, in a voice heavy with sleep and disuse. ‘Jonah? Is that you? Have you come to save me?’

And yet, the man standing before him was not Jonah Magnus. He’d have almost have described the man as a foreigner, for the shape of the necktie was odd and the cut of the coat was strange. In the fog that had been curtailed outside, the buttons shone. They were too dull to be brass or some other metal. If they were bone, they had to have been lacquered in black. The man did not have Jonah’s countenance but there was a peculiar familiarity in the way that he carried himself. 

The man smiled at him, then and slowly shook his head. ‘I’m not Jonah. My name is Elias Bouchard. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.’ There was something achingly familiar about the interlocution, but again Barnabas could not place it. He must have heard it somewhere else before. It was not exactly like Jonah’s, for this stranger had a more abrupt manner of speaking. A relative, perhaps? A nephew? It was not unheard of for a man to change his name. ‘I am what you would perhaps call an independent party interested in your welfare.’ 

‘Are you, perhaps, a debt collector who has come on behalf of Lukas?’ His own voice was thin and disused. 

‘Goodness, no. I’m not actually interested in your money.’

‘Did Jonah send you then?’

A half smile. The man had tilted his head, as if he were more cat than man. ‘Jonah would do no such thing.’ Then a gentleness entered his voice, softening it. ‘Jonah would simply watch as you succumbed. You should not wait for have waited for him. That was your fatal mistake.’

‘I loved him. And yet I do not blame him. I blame myself. If anything, I should have heeded his warnings.’

‘Of course.’ Came the comment, crisp and cutting.

‘Whoever you may be, Elias, whatever your intentions — know that I would do anything to secure my leave from this place. Whatever your price may be, I would pay it.’

The cold eyes studied him then. ‘Would you really do anything to escape this place, Barnabas?’

Hearing his name upon the stranger’s lips brought a flush to his face. It went against all social mores and yet it sounded strangely fitting, then, to hear his name so intimately phrased. 

'I— What do you mean?' He said, with no small measure of terror.

'You are marked down to your very soul for the Lonely.' Elias' voice was low and harsh. 'Even if you were to leave this place, do really think that it would be so quick as to leave you? It would not have harmed you, had you chosen differently. Perhaps, I was wrong in coming here. If you had left on your own terms, you would be better prepared to escape the next time if it decided not to relinquish its hold on you. You have the quality of an unfinished meal.’

The cold terror returned to his bones. More strongly than ever, he felt the acute feeling of being watched, of something waiting to consume all that his heart had left bare.

'Why do you say those things? I know that you are not a cruel man—'

'What do you really know of me, Barnabas?' Elias whispered. 'Shall I whisper cold comforts in your ear? Shall I regale you with the tales of my sins? Our world is not and has never been a kind one, fitting neatly into your convenient beliefs of the kindness of the human heart.’

‘Please Elias,’ he begged at last. Pitiful words, for so broken a man, laid down at the feet of a stranger. ‘If you will not save me, I ask only that you stay with me a little longer yet. Even if I must fall, I beg that you offer me that comfort.’

There was a moment of absolute silence. Elias closed his eyes. When they were reopened, it seemed that the coldness in them broken, to leave only pity, tinged with an undefined emotion. 

A single bright tear had trailed down the length of the Barnabas’ cheek which Elias brushed away with the tips of his fingers. There was such a gentleness in the gesture, that it only made Barnabas’ shuddering worse.

‘Don't cry, Barnabas. You were made for finer things than grief.’

‘I know that you must despise my weakness so.’ Barnabas managed to say. 

‘You are very ill. And to have survived for so long in this place, you must have a very strong will. And besides that, I haven’t come all this way to abandon you. And I should not have spoken to as I did.’ Elias swallowed. ‘Will you forgive me, Barnabas?’

‘What is there to forgive? I am grateful, for your compassion. Your generosity. You tended to me when I was sick.’

And perhaps the fever had not abated truly, in the light of what he saw before him. ‘Thank you, Barnabas’, Jonah said simply, but it was in Elias’ voice that he spoke. The merest hint of guilt was in those eyes and then it was swiftly gone.

* * *

Elias was still there, when Barnabas woke up. True to Elias' word, he did not break with his patient that day, nor the next, nor every day that was needed so desperately. Perhaps a week passed by and there was such a peace in Barnabas’ soul which he had not known for a long time.

Helping his sick patient sit up, Elias would point out features in the window. His keen eyes would help Barnabas pick out Polaris the brightest, Cepheus and Canis Major. The eternal chase of Laelaps for the Teumessian Fox in the night sky. He knew of Messier, Halley and Newton, a thousand mythologies that his patient could never have teased apart, a thousand civilisations that cast what small knowledge Barnabas possessed to shame. He knew tales that had never have been bound, wild and vicious entanglements across continents and the slow fall of paradise.

And yet still, did the dread in Barnabas linger. For whenever he saw the man sitting at the window, something odd would occur. Even as the fog pressed against the glass, it avoided Elias' being. There was a gulf between fog and man, as if there was something within Elias that affected the unnatural order of the world. For the first time in all the time that he had been there, Barnabas felt that salvation from this place lay within his grasp, but it was meted out by fear. Elias could just as quickly help him as he could destroy him on a whim. 

The man was evasive in other ways as well. Elias maintained that he had come to spare Barnabas from some fate or the other. But to also have legitimately no connection to either the Lukases or Jonah and yet to disavow both of them! It would not withstand even the slightest scrutiny. Barnabas was sure that he had never even met the man. And yet that night, when Elias had touched his face and talked to him with such a familiarity that his blood ran both cold and hot at once — he could not deny the current of regard that ran between them. It was more than a simple exchange of words and sympathy. 

Later in the day, he had opened his mouth, at one point, to say something or the other. It must have been a combination of the position where Elias sat and his own proximity, but it had been the first time that he had looked and truly seen the man, without the encumbrance of shadow, grief or fear. The words had died in his throat.

It was Elias’ eyes then, that had given him away. Not the words or the behaviour, or indeed the mannerisms that had been subtly altered as if there had been some great intervening years between the iteration of the man that Barnabas had known and this current last iteration. But caught in the abstract light of the swirling fog, it had struck him that every fleck, every striation in Elias’ eyes were precisely the same as Jonah’s. He had been an intimate of Jonah’s for many years and even the length of his stay in the Lonely had not been sufficient to strike it from his memories. He knew the colour of Jonah’s eyes in as many ways as he knew his own, the cast and hue of them changing as they approached candlelight, daylight and night-time and through all the shades in between.

Elias wore Jonah’s eyes now. Or perhaps, the eyes wore him, for as he smiled, he could see some of the familiar lines of Jonah’s smile, in a way that made him worry for Jonah’s soul. And yet, if the man had surely lost all that had tied him to goodness and humanity, why then had he come to tend Barnabas and to offer comfort where he most needed it? It was a question that held him always, when he was awake and in that place and in nightmares it haunted him still, the presence in the room watching, night after night. Then, his terrors had overcome him and Jonah had not lifted a finger to help him. For those were the eyes that had seen everything that the fear had to offer, had brought about the end of all things and had, yet, returned to spread further misery upon the world.

And Jonah might still. For to him, Barnabas was an unfinished meal. He understood, on some instinctive level, that for Jonah, to fall a little further from grace would be simple. All he would have to do would watch. It was not an active death that the Power about him desired, but the passive trajectory of a fate towards his bittersweet end. 

As if knowing Barnabas’ unease, Jonah said, ‘Tomorrow morning, we shall depart, if you are well enough upon your feet.’ It seemed that the longer the man remained here, the more subtly the accent altered, as if, by simply being in his old acquaintance’s presence he was slowly returning to his roots.

‘I was beginning to fear that there was no way back from this place.’

Jonah smiled, tightly. ‘If you know where to look, Barnabas, anyone can find a way back, no matter how far they may have wandered. Sweet dreams. If you find yourself unable to sleep, I am reliably informed that counting cows is helpful in that regard.’ It was a private jest, Barnabas was certain, but it brought comfort. Then the wick had been extinguished, blown out. 

* * *

Morning found them walking a short distance away from the manse. It was difficult for him to cover ground and again his companion was patient, waiting for him to catch up so that they could enter the city. And then at some unknown signal, Jonah had stopped. He had examined the sky and the ground and then he had turned his eyes on Barnabas.

‘Now, I want you to promise me something.’

‘Anything, Elias.’

‘Promise me that you’ll stay away from Jonah Magnus and Mordechai Lukas. There is a small sum of money that that I will send to you shortly; you should use that to pay off your debt. I'd assume that you would then attempt to pay them in person, but it would not be a wise course of action. Dispatch a trusted courier with the sum and do not trifle with the Lukases. Do not appear before them in person.'

It seemed a simple enough matter, so Barnabas had nodded.

'There’s another matter — a skeleton. I’ve already had it dispatched, together with a hearse and you will receive word of it within a few days. Do not engage with the coach drivers any more than absolutely necessary. They are not of this world. You do not, under any circumstance, wish to upset them. You will arrange the skeleton at the exact location and time that I will dictate to you within a letter. Do not deviate from the time frame that I will have specified. That, I hope, will be enough to prevent Jonah Magnus from seeking you out further.'

The air seemed to chill a fraction.

‘What skeleton?’ He’d said faintly. ‘What does Jonah Magnus want of me?’

The eyes had shifted imperceptibly towards him. ‘Your bones. Your skeleton. A decoration, of sorts — a replacement for the human connection that he was never able to forge.’ Jonah’s gaze dug into him. There was a dispassionate emotion there, that made him shiver, the eyes of a being that had long ceased to remember how to be human. 

‘If you want it, you may have my hand as a memento.’ He said to Jonah. 

‘This isn’t a game. This isn’t a matter of my personal amusement.’ He stepped closer. ‘What does fate demand of a man? His humanity? His soul? In this case, a skeleton of an already dead man seems like a good bargain.'

He was close then, so close that Barnabas, for a moment forgot himself. There were so many things that he had wanted to say in that moment but in a brief moment, the words had deserted him. 

He looked into those eyes and said, ‘Whatever is mine is yours. My soul even, if that is what you desire.'

Jonah said, in a voice that wasn't entirely even, 'Barnabas, I—'

'—But if you will tell me nothing else —’, Barnabas' voice cracked then. ‘Why did you leave me then, Jonah? Why did you come back for me?’

There was a shiver in the air. Barnabas kept waiting for it, for the moment. For the other man to deny it. To deny who he was, to say something cruel. To abandon him right there and then, to break him a second time. But the moment never came. Instead, Jonah stepped near him and embraced him. An embrace, then, from him, instead of a blow. He cupped Barnabas’ face in his hands gently. 

‘Perhaps I couldn’t bear to see you die.’ He whispered. Then he had leaned in and kissed Barnabas.

They stood like that a while. Barnabas wasn’t sure whose breath it was that had juddered. Perhaps it was both of theirs. Then Jonah released him, stepping away. His expression had changed, the perfect composure gone, as if he was realising that he was no longer the distant observer, that he had interceded. An apprehension, a careful wariness was dawning instead. His fine shoes crunched, onto the gravel and it was then that Barnabas realised that the fog that had haunted him for so long had lifted. 

There was noise, a music to Barnabas’ ears — and there was so much of it. His nose seared with the smell of the stalls and the sizzling food, his ears danced with the sound of music. He, who had been in the middle of a silent city, was now gifted with life. An emotion he had almost forgotten how to feel shot through him. And there were so many people — pouring forth from every corner of the street. It was as if all that he had ever desired had been behind a faucet and it had been turned on again suddenly. 

His eyes stung with the emotion of it all. He turned to watch all the world at was, and there was only one person standing apart of it, who he had loved as he had loved no one no one else before. 

‘Will you come with me, Jonah?’ He said then.

Jonah studied the people that thronged the streets, that unabashed symphony of life. 

‘I can’t come. Simply put, my existence here is a contradiction. The other Jonah would find out… and then I suppose it wouldn't go well for any of us.'

He touched Jonah's shoulder then. 'Remember to write to me then.'

‘I shouldn’t. It would do neither of us any good. That I have saved you — let that be enough for both of us.’ A smile then, crooked and yet not without pain. ‘Two hundred years, Barnabas. That’s how long it has been since I last saw you.’

And then Jonah was gone, heels upon those cobblestones. He did not turn back, not even once, perhaps, he thought that he would be turned to a pillar of salt for his transgressions. It was difficult to discern the exact moment that Jonah had vanished. One moment he was there and the next the crowd had closed over him. Barnabas waited, but Jonah never returned. Then, eventually reluctantly he walked into the life that had been returned to him. 

* * *

As promised, there was a delivery for him the very next day. He had changed the place of residence he had stayed as best as he had been able to within his financial means. He had been surprised when he had heard the sound of a shod horse, clattering on the cobblestones outside. There was the sound of leather brushing on metal and he opened the door to admit the people at his door. Both were dressed in funereal colours and they were very tall. Both doffed their hats and neither exchanged pleasantries.

‘Well, well,’ said one of the men. 

Said the other, ‘If it isn’t Barnabas Bennett himself—’

‘Wish I could get your autograph, I have books about you aplenty.’

‘Some even first edition, penned by the author himself.’ They both leered at him in unison.

‘We have a delivery for you.’

There was an awful sound of something being dragged over the cobblestones. He backed away as a coffin was moved in through his doorway. The contents of the delivery were disgorged through it. The skeleton the exact height that he was. The bones were slightly yellowed and yet, he sensed, as he looked at them, that by whatever perversion of nature Jonah had committed to obtain it, the state of it, on that day, would be in the exact same state as they ought to have been on the day he died. Not for the first time, his thoughts tended towards worry for the state of Jonah’s soul and yet, the other man had clearly accepted his Fate.

Barnabas, likewise, had decided that he would do the same. He would leave the symbol of his mortality where it ought to be, when the time came.

And yet, there was one final thing. In spite of himself, his heart skipped a beat when he saw what it was. Mail, from the general post, for him. A letter, from Jonah, sealed with wax, stamped over with the imprint of a signet ring. 

He thanked both men for their time and they bid him a sinister goodbye. As the sound of horse on road began to start up again, this time in the opposite direction this time, he slid the envelope open. He almost laughed at the size of the text. It appeared to have been mechanically produced, for the writing was too regular for its size and yet perfect in proportions. And yet, it seemed that Jonah had still spent a colossal amount of effort compiling the sheer amount of text written upon the page. 

_My dearest Barnabas_. He read. Then he stopped, forcing himself to do so. It wouldn’t do, to read this in the doorway. He would read it over a cup of tea, he decided, in comfort. After all, he had time now that he had not had before. 

And as the rain frittered down, he thought that it was not so lonely when one had friends in this place. 

And perhaps, against all the odds, Jonah could still be persuaded to write. Already, the man had made an excellent first effort, in what Barnabas hoped would be the beginning of a long correspondence.

* * *

It rained with an unseasonal heaviness in the Autumn of 1825. The pigeons sat underneath the eaves, warbling to one another, fluttering occasionally.

There was a man, who hurried through the heavy rain, the gas streetlights adding a little extra visibility to the road. Raincoats had not existed back then, so he had been forced to make do with a coat that was essentially a tarpaulin in all but name. He was not above flaunting anachronisms, but he supposed he would make an extra effort for Barnabas’ sake. 

For today, he wanted to be the invisible and unnoticeable man. Tomorrow, in his present, was trivia with Gertrude Robinson of all people and there were forty two work items on his calendar — mostly items contending with the post-post apocalypse. Peter was still filling his office with fog as part practical joke and part revenge for the amount of money that had been sent to Barnabas — the exact amount for Mordechai’s debt pinched from the account of his descendant. Tomorrow, Timothy Stoker was planning to release exotic, formerly extinct butterflies into the lower levels of the Institute, where Jonah’s body still resided on the assumption that it would be converted into a butterfly house. Tomorrow, half the night sky might still be missing as Simon arranged the stars in alphabetical order. 

Tomorrow, ninety percent of the world could still be a blank abyss and the approximate chance of a second accidental mass extinction event was sitting at twelve point five percent.

And yet, what he feared the most was today, standing in front of Barnabas’ door, with the rain in his hair and a question on his lips. 

A hurried voice. 'Come in, come in, please don't mind the mess.’ A promise he had made a long time ago. ‘Jonah! It is you!’

Pages fluttered. A pen sat next to a stack of pages. Some of them had caught in Barnabas' hair, contributing to the wild expression of his eyes. Books sat in their shelves, a fire burning in the grail and an assortment of small collectibles expectantly lined the mantelpiece in front of the mirror, some Jonah recognised as he had given them to Barnabas long ago. He hung his coat on a peg. Hearth, home and carpet. Some fragments of stone and one sculpture that he assumed had been recovered from an archaeological expedition.

Jonah realised then, that he was staring then, mostly at the other man’s face. He trailed off. ‘I ought to have made more time I’m sorry. It was unconscionably rude of me to miss last Christmas and also last month. I am trying to mend my ways.’

'Whatever time you can make for me, no matter when,' Barnabas was saying, 'is the highlight of the day. You know that I love you Jonah.’

‘Selfish of me, I know, but I suppose… I suppose I always assumed that there would be a point at which you would move onto someone else. You deserved much better than me.’ 

‘And yet even then, would I be able to find another that I loved as much as you?’

Jonah opened his mouth and then closed it. The emotion welling up in his throat made it difficult to speak and yet it was difficult to maintain eye contact. By all rights, the other man should hate him. ‘And yet, you know the name of the person who left you in the Lonely.’

'Yes.' Barnabas said simply, looking Jonah in the eye. 'And he is welcome here always.' He took a deep breath. 'I knew and yet I loved him still. Does that make me a fool, Jonah for loving him as much as I do?'

‘No.’ It was the softest word. ‘I love you too, just as much as you love me. And you know that I won’t stand to be outdone.’ Then reaching into his waistcoat pocket, not the pocket of the abomination of tarpaulin and raincoat, he brought out a box trying to keep his hands steady. Then he opened it and drew out a ring. It glittered a brilliant silver in the light, the pure light of it reflecting in Barnabas’ irises and the misted window pane, warm for it had basked in the glow of the fire and yet cold with the outside rain and dew. He did not get down on a knee, for long after his fall, hubris snapped at his heels still and all the Archivists on this side of the Earth could not rid him of it.

‘Barnabas,’ Jonah asked, ‘Will you marry me?’

* * *


End file.
